Avadon - Released on iPad

Maybe it will make it so he can take a few more chances again like with Nethergate. That didn't pan out as well as he hoped, but he did take a chance with something new and interesting and I loved it.

So forget it. If this iPad 10 dollar thing means he's more financially secure and that in turn means he can take a few more chances like he did with Geneforge and Nethergate then I'm all for it and will stop complaining about the lousy 25 bucks.

I still would have liked it if it had been just a tiny bit different, but oh well. I also would like a million bucks too and that ain't happening anytime soon.
 
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Daddy32 said:
Of course, who would give a negative review to a game with length and depth worth of $25, sold for $10? :p

If there's cap to the price on the store, he could have split it to 2 (or more) episodes and sell them each for $10.
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There isn't a 'cap', I have games and apps that cost up to $20 - including a great music app that was a 'huge sale' at $20!

It is interesting how some reviews complain that it is very expensive but worth it anyway.
 
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skavenhorde said:
Maybe it will make it so he can take a few more chances again like with Nethergate. That didn't pan out as well as he hoped, but he did take a chance with something new and interesting and I loved it.

So forget it. If this iPad 10 dollar thing means he's more financially secure and that in turn means he can take a few more chances like he did with Geneforge and Nethergate then I'm all for it and will stop complaining about the lousy 25 bucks.

I still would have liked it if it had been just a tiny bit different, but oh well. I also would like a million bucks too and that ain't happening anytime soon.
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The info he gave was in a personal email so I won't reveal much, but I don't think it would be a huge surprise to say that after being in the top 100 in the entire store this week (out of 500,000!) this will *not* be his last iPad game.
 
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Well let's hope that with the money he gets from this, he won't abandon other platforms - and will maybe even embrace new ones (as I've heard that libraries he has used to port to the ipad are compilable for Android, too).
 
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I think Android user base is coming around to the idea of paying for decent apps. There's a Tactical JRPG called Spectral Souls released in January that has a ton of reviews from paid users and is regularly featured at the front page of the Android Market and that game costs $15! Battlehart, a tower defense/action RPG just got ported from iOS a little bit ago and is in the top 10 on Amazon's Android market and Kemco translated one of their JRPGs to English and has another on the way.

That said, the bulk of the Android devices out there currently are phones. The Android tablets still have a ways to go to get anything near the user base of the iPads. Jeff's games aren't something that would work well on a phone at all without significant modifications, which is why he made it iPad only and not iPhone.

Unless it's a very simple thing to do, I don't think it would be worth the effort for him to port Avadon to Android at this time because the tablet user base just isn't there yet. A year or so from now that might change.
 
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txa1265 said:
The info he gave was in a personal email so I won't reveal much, but I don't think it would be a huge surprise to say that after being in the top 100 in the entire store this week (out of 500,000!) this will *not* be his last iPad game.
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Really? Wow, good for him! I would not have thought he would be able to get into those lists at all. Did he do any sort of marketing for it?
 
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Daddy32 said:
Well let's hope that with the money he gets from this, he won't abandon other platforms - and will maybe even embrace new ones (as I've heard that libraries he has used to port to the ipad are compilable for Android, too).
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Of course 'compatible with Android' is like 'compatible with Windows Mobile' back in the bad old days … most non-trivial games are compatible with ~50% of Android phones. The platform fragmentation is a serious issue as mentioned by many devs.

I know that I own two Moto phones (original Droid and Droid Pro) and there are many things that don't work between the two.

There was an interesting article about Android development recently - in spite of having more phones out than anyone, it lags iPhone development in a huge way, with most good apps being ports. The #1 issue - money. Android users simply aren't buying in adequate quantities.

As for Spectral Souls, the game was mediocre at best on the PSP, and devs are pushing hard … there have been reports of questionable behavior on their part, but I never found anything substantive. It is a royal pain to get working reliably on a phone, and I have given up on getting it to work on the Droid Pro, and am still playing on the Droid.


GhanBuriGhan said:
Really? Wow, good for him! I would not have thought he would be able to get into those lists at all. Did he do any sort of marketing for it?
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Definitely - I got contacted by a PR rep who says he works only with indie game devs. Since I already bought it myself he saved a review code for someone else!
 
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I have Spectral Souls too. It's just sort of eh for me, but I mentioned it because it seemed to be getting a lot of attention. I really disliked the controls personally. I hate when ports just throw up a virtual gamepad on the screen and don't optimize the game at all for touch control. I think that's really lazy on the part of the developer.

I bought Symphony of Eternity from Kemco recently on the Android market for $2.99 and am really enjoying that one. It's like an SNES Final Fantasy game with a lot of flexibility in character customization. It also has a touch control navigation.

I agree that fragmentation is a problem for Android, both among hardware and software. Google really needs to slow down on the OS releases because there are just too many out there right now.

The fragmentation argument though has been used in the past for console vs PC. It will always be more of a pain in the ass program for a platform with multiple configurations than for one with only one.
 
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txa1265 said:
No, it wouldn't. Because aside from the underlying anti-Apple angle of most here (in the defense of PC RPG, just to be clear), there is also a broad sense of entitlement. Vogel could arrange a month of oral sex for everyone who bought the Mac or PC version, and people would be bashing him for it not being two months, and those who bought more than one game think they should get twice as much as those who only bought one, and so on. Spoiled. Rotten. Entitled. Brats.
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This must be the biggest joke I read on this forum! How is that Mac owners are anti-Apple? :)

I have PC, Mac and ipad and I think Pc and Mac are better gaming platforms than ipad. I also think that you are selling a game on ipad for 10 then you should also sell for for 10 on the PC and Mac too!
 
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lostforever said:
This must be the biggest joke I read on this forum! How is that Mac owners are anti-Apple? :)

I have PC, Mac and ipad and I think Pc and Mac are better gaming platforms than ipad. I also think that you are selling a game on ipad for 10 then you should also sell for for 10 on the PC and Mac too!
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But these are differnt mark... Oh snap! ;)
 
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I'm confused. Vogel says, "I don't normally explain my decisions about pricing, but this merits a few words."

Bullshit. In part, I am such a hardcore believer in the middle of the road price because of him and it was a large part of why I was so angry about this 10 dollar nonsense.

I seriously no longer care or want to hear anything from him. I'll buy his games because I like them, but I do not want to read one more of these Bottom Feeder bullshit blogs.
 
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He completely ignores that he is in FULL control of the PC price, and whatever small ways to compensate his loyal fans. The focus is on the iPad - as if that was the only way to circumvent this anger.

He's just not accountable, and like with the response to Avadon on a previous blog - he refuses to take any criticism seriously.

Still, he's separate from the game itself. If people think it's worth 25$ - then that's that.

I just think Vogel is being rather tasteless about the whole thing.
 
I don't mean to start this debate again. But he is right at least about one thing: this price difference thing is in no way unique to Avadon (as I also previously pointed out). Maybe the debate should be divorced from Vogel and his game and focus more on the phenomenon in general.
 
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If the ten dollar price point works for iPad then go for it. If it drives developers out of business or they cut content then it's a problem. It looks to be that it won't drive indie devs out of business to release a product for 10 dollars. Quite the contrary it looks like they can do very well.

So maybe future PC RPG indie Devs could port their games over to the iPad as well. I just hope they don't totally ditch the PC.

BTW, if you're wondering why I've had a change of heart it's because I've given up. I'd much rather have a game like Avadon for a measly 25 dollars than not have it. Whether it's fair or not that iPad users get it cheaper no longer matters. It might be nice if all those developers who release their games at one price for the PC/MAC and at another price for iPad offer something more, but if they don't do anything different then oh well.
 
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skavenhorde said:
I'm confused. Vogel says, "I don't normally explain my decisions about pricing, but this merits a few words."

Bullshit. In part, I am such a hardcore believer in the middle of the road price because of him and it was a large part of why I was so angry about this 10 dollar nonsense.

I seriously no longer care or want to hear anything from him. I'll buy his games because I like them, but I do not want to read one more of these Bottom Feeder bullshit blogs.
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I don't understand why you're so angry and why you're taking it so personally.

Vogel says:
1. He normally doesn't explain pricing decisions.

That's 100% correct. Business decisions are usually not explained to the customer. Try to ask ActiBlizz about their reasons for a decision … you'll either be ignored or get a noncommittal answer.

2. Different platform, different pricing structure.

Also 100% correct.

3. 9.99$ is the maximum he feels he can ask for on the iPad without killing his business on this market.

Does this sound unreasonable?! Does anybody here have more information about this than Jeff? He has always been a proponent of a high price strategy, and he said he believes he couldn't go any higher on the iPad. Do you really think he is wrong?


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And why would he reconsider his pricing strategy on the 2 older platforms when he enters a third one? This is new business, not the extension of his old markets. A totally different market, not connected to PC & Mac. So he would be an idiot to lower his prices unless his numbers say so independent from everything iPad.

The price difference is normal. It's a standard business pracice. It makes no sense at all to complain about it.
 
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Well he HAS talked a lot about pricing in the past, more than anybody else in the indie scene, afaik. But still its just an offhand comment.

It would be interesting to see if the success of a lower priced iPad version (although we do not really now how big of a success it was) will make him rethink the high price strategy overall.

Sigh, I would have liked to ask him that on his blog, but I can't figure out how to comment. If I use my google account, I just go in circles between login and security check screens...
 
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Gorath said:
I don't understand why you're so angry and why you're taking it so personally.

Vogel says:
1. He normally doesn't explain pricing decisions.

That's 100% correct. Business decisions are usually not explained to the customer. Try to ask ActiBlizz about their reasons for a decision … you'll either be ignored or get a noncommittal answer.
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You are wrong, Gorath. He has explained his position on indie pricing at great length and I agreed with him. Hell he even has a label dedicated to "pricing" at his blog. So for him to try and say he doesn't talk about pricing is like if I said that I don't talk about computer games. I would be a liar.

I knew someone would try and say he doesn't talk about pricing. I should have just put the links up in the first place, but I was hoping that people would know more about Vogel if they were going to try and disagree with me.

Please read this

Here is part 2

Here is a label dedicated to pricing.

I especially like this part:

Creating the Expectation of Insulting Cheapness

There is an increasing attitude that Indie games should be cheap. Super cheap. Like, pennies on the dollar, "How can a developer make a living that way?" cheap.

XBox Live gave the trend a big push by charging $5 or $10 for most titles. That was still enough to get rich on when the gold rush was going. It isn't going anymore. I was genuinely surprised when people seriously complained that Braid, one of the coolest, most innovative titles out last year, was an entirely reasonable fifteen bucks.

Then Microsoft created XNA, a set of tools anyone can use to write and sell games on the XBox. Sounds cool, so far, but the maximum anyone can sell their game for is $10. Not good. Think that, sometimes, some games should actually sell for more than that? You are, apparently, crazy.

Then Amazon opened their game download store, selling all titles for ten bucks or less. Not good. (Oh, and look at the comments in the article I just linked to if you don't think people are now expecting games to be that cheap.)

Now the iPhone has boldly lowered the bar, with $4.99 being the highest price point for most of the titles, and the user reviews on most $4.99 titles are about how excessively expensive they are. (As if.) And many of the games are going for ninety-nine cents. Cents! Once the gold rush is over, only the lowest budget, most casual titles are going to be able to make money at that price.

Bargain basement prices are becoming the expectation. It wasn't always that way.
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I've already waved the white flag on the 10 dollar nonsense (please read the post right above your post and the one at the top of this page :p). If it works then great. He gets to make more games and it may give other RPG indies another option to stay in business as well. If somewhere down the line they feel like it might be nice to offer their PC customers something a little extra for paying the extra price then great. If not then oh well.
 
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